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Russia in color, a century ago

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Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#71

Post by michaelkscott »

thematt wrote: post #38
keiferski wrote: post #37

Just think: in 50-100 years, the phrase "100 years ago" won't mean that much, in terms of technology.

Really? Why do you suppose? In 50-100 years, I can easily see us having a permanent presence on another planet, fully automated vehicles and a Terminator like military comprised completely of robots. That world (if true), technologically, would look amazingly different than how we live today.

Another planet in our solar system? Sure. But even the nearest planet beyond our Solar system is about 11 light years away. And getting there anytime soon is an unfeasible goal according to Physics. Perhaps the Earth would be different 50 to 100 from now, but I wouldn't bet too much on any exciting activity going on outside of our planet.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#73

Post by 1gor »

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

> No one is smiling

Don't forget, this was an official photographer mission, sponsored by the Tzar.

I think most people on the photos were stressed enough to be asked to pose in front of unknown equipment, probably with some local officials present on the shoot.

EDIT: actually, there are nice smiling faces on http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_c... , where people are not posing.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#74

Post by onetimeuse001 »

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

Normally people are not smiling unless they are meeting someone or seeing something funny.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#75

Post by jsilence »

dkroy wrote: post #27
twelvechairs wrote: post #15

Note that those shown are all heavily restored (also cropped) versions of the originals. They are all from the Library of Congress collection (~1900 of the ~3500 he made). An example of an unrestored version for comparison is at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/item/prk20000025... .

Honestly, even those in the link are impressive to me. Just think of where technology was at that point in time, and what ingenuity it took to create pictures of this quality.

Yes. I'm also really impressed with the pictures. We have come a lone way in only three to four generations. My personal contribution to humanity so far: zero. Standing on the shoulders of giants...

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#76

Post by dusing »

alecperkins wrote: post #23

I was first amazed at the quality, then surprised that these were taken more recently than I expected, in 1910. Then, I realized that, duh, that was 102 years ago. It's strange how even 100+ years ago is getting more and more recent. (Obviously, that's how it works. But perception lags quite a bit.)

I used to always think the 80's were 20 years ago.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#77

Post by derrida »

I notice they have a picture of Tblisi (http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bi...) , which is now in Georgia (not Russia). Tblisi is a rather beautiful looking place, here is a recent picture from almost the same place http://www.experience.hk/wp-content/uploads/Tbilisi-4.jpg

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#78

Post by shawnc »

These are so amazing. The world wasn't sepia toned a hundred years ago! As silly as that statement is, my brain is actually having a hard time really believing these photos are from 100 years ago. I'm in awe.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#79

Post by sukuriant »

sjwright wrote: post #46
sukuriant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're actually approaching, if not have passed, the resolution of standard film with some higher end SLRs [1, 2]; at least in a total-usable-pixels perspective; but of course at the sub-pixel level, we're still very far off with only 14 bits per channel. There's also the question of how the total pixels are arranged, since each bit of the sensor is only absorbing one color, etc; but in time, at least as far as resolu…

Ask any working professional photographer and they'll tell you we passed the practical resolution of film (35mm vs 35mm) years ago, and with the insanely low noise levels, we passed the dynamic range potential years ago too. With the latest cameras in hand, you can capture sharper and cleaner photographs than the best 35mm film could ever manage, and you can do it with a tiny fraction of the light (1/16th the amount,…

I probably mostly hear from purists and those people that don't want to look at the facts because "records are better than CD's" and similar arguments. I didn't know they were competing with medium format film now. That's .. saying something. o.o

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#80

Post by pimeys »

sjwright wrote: post #46
sukuriant wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're actually approaching, if not have passed, the resolution of standard film with some higher end SLRs [1, 2]; at least in a total-usable-pixels perspective; but of course at the sub-pixel level, we're still very far off with only 14 bits per channel. There's also the question of how the total pixels are arranged, since each bit of the sensor is only absorbing one color, etc; but in time, at least as far as resolu…

Ask any working professional photographer and they'll tell you we passed the practical resolution of film (35mm vs 35mm) years ago, and with the insanely low noise levels, we passed the dynamic range potential years ago too. With the latest cameras in hand, you can capture sharper and cleaner photographs than the best 35mm film could ever manage, and you can do it with a tiny fraction of the light (1/16th the amount,…

Maybe 35mm, but I'm still not sure have we passed the quality of medium and large film sizes. An old Hasselblad can still take pretty good pictures.
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